RIM invites Indian corporate houses to test latest operating system BlackBerry 10 before launch

BANGALORE: BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion, which hopes to reinvigorate its business through the launch of its latest operating system BlackBerry 10 in early 2013, has invited leading Indian corporate houses to test its new platform.

Smartphone makers have to make a dent in the corporate segment if they are to succeed with their new product launches. While a few corporates testing the new platform have liked it, the rest are yet to make up their mind.

At least six technology heads of companies that ET spoke to said they were assessing the new platform, although only two confirmed that they planned to implement it.

"The BB 10 Platform certainly seems quite promising," said Pravin Savant, chief information officer at the Indian arm of London-based advertising firm Lowe Lintas. "The interface is seamless and the availability of features like SureType (an app for easier typing on smartphones) makes it much more user friendly."

RIM's new operating system comes at a time when BlackBerry handsets are losing popularity in India, where their market share fell from 18% to 12% over the past one year, according to research firm Cybermedia Research.

Industry watchers said the BlackBerry 10 platform is part of RIM's efforts to combat the rising popularity of touchscreen phones from rivals Samsung and Apple.

RIM said it is confident that its new operating system will attract Indian enterprise users, including some top conglomerates and government departments.

"India is a prime market. In BB10, we have taken some of our existing features, like security for instance, to the next well so that it creates a great work-life balance," said Scott Totzke, senior vice-president of BlackBerry Security at Research In Motion.

"We are offering a cross-platform and this will really help attract corporate users in the country. I met about 100 Indian CIO's in the last three days."

Francis Rajan, CIO at the Bangalore International Airport, said the airport's email applications are run on BlackBerry "since it is the one of toughest when it comes to security".

"As an airport, we need to look at technology from two sides. One from the passenger's side, then from the operational side. Within the organisation, we still use the RIM platform, but outside we are looking to cater to every platform," he said.

RIM does not disclose its percentage growth from different segment, but Totzke said in India its revenues are almost equally split between consumers and enterprises. According to analysts, about 102 million mobile handsets were sold in India during the first six months of 2012, of which about 6 million were smartphones. Samsung had a 42% share of India's smartphone market followed by Nokia with 19%.

Source:ET